Hurricane Katrina: Graphic - What Went Wrong The Washington Post produced a timeline tracking Hurricane Katrina's path and listing the federal, state and local responses to the storm before and after it hit the Gulf Coast (updated thru 10/05)

States: Alabama

October 17, 2007

The Public Affairs Research Council of Louisiana and the Nelson A.
Rockefeller Institute of Government today released a report on the
important role the nonprofit community has played in hurricane recovery
efforts across Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. GulfGov Reports:Response, Recovery, and the Role of the Nonprofit Community in the Two Years Since Katrina and Rita
examines the role of the nonprofit sector in the recovery, what impact
hurricanes Katrina and Rita have had on the work of these
organizations, and what changes they already have made to handle the
next disaster that strikes.

In contrast to the criticism that seems to accompany almost every
aspect of the governmental recovery effort, the consensus among local
officials, residents, and outside observers is that the nonprofit
sector has responded to the rebuilding challenge beyond all expectation.

“The scope of the nonprofit community’s work in helping the Gulf
Coast region rebuild has been unprecedented,” said Jim Brandt,
president of PAR and co-principal investigator for the GulfGov Reports
project. “It has included everything from national foundations
investing millions of dollars in the recovery to out-of-town groups
making frequent rebuilding trips to locally based groups lobbying for
policy changes. There is no question that the nonprofit community is
helping to push the recovery forward.”

Immediately after the storms, organizations that had never been
involved in disaster relief and recovery work looked for ways to help.
Small churches that really were not equipped to handle sizable numbers
of evacuees opened their doors anyway, and their congregations
responded. Normally staid foundations cut through paperwork and
procedures to get money out quickly to organizations and agencies
working directly in the affected areas. Well-established nonprofits
performed double duty, taking in their counterparts from the devastated
areas at the same time that their client loads increased. As the
immediate crisis passed and the affected communities settled in for the
long recovery, the nonprofit sector moved with them.

This study finds that nonprofit, community-based, and faith-based
organizations remain more important than ever in the recovery efforts.
By examining the groups cited in this report, one gets a picture of the
variety of these organizations and the different strengths they bring
to the recovery. In addition, some common issues and concerns emerged
from the research:

The wide-ranging impact of hurricanes Katrina and Rita
required the nonprofit sector to be adaptable to rapidly changing
circumstances. It was not so much the missions of these groups that had
to be altered. Rather, it was the scope of the work that changed as the
demand and the need for services exploded.

The critical
need for a disaster response and recovery plan was reinforced. Many
nonprofit organizations did not have such a plan before Katrina and
Rita. Now they do. Other groups that had plans found they had to revise
them.

Funding sustainability is a serious problem. More
than two years after hurricanes Katrina and Rita, many groups are
running out of the money they need to keep providing elevated levels of
service.

The role and coordination of volunteers are major
concerns for state and local governments. Everything from work
assignments to housing, food, and transportation must be coordinated so
that volunteers can be sent where they are most needed. That
encompasses both the response and recovery phases of disasters.

“Studying the nonprofit community’s response to Katrina and Rita and
how nonprofit organizations worked with government at all levels offers
us another opportunity to gain insight into how best to respond to
disasters,” said Dr. Richard P. Nathan, co-director of the Rockefeller
Institute and co-principal investigator for the GulfGov Reports
project. “It is critical that we take heed of the lessons learned here
so that we can be better prepared for the next time. This fifth report
from our three-year study focuses a flashing red light on the need for
mechanisms to enable a leading organization in disaster situations to
pull things together to make and oversee working connections among
nonprofit and community-based groups. This is a vital part of the hard
work of managerial leadership on the ground. Laws should be in place so
that such mechanisms will be established at the ‘get go’ with adequate
financial support to maximize and coordinate the contributions of
volunteer groups to help address both human and infrastructure needs.”

Nonprofit, community-based, and faith-based organizations are
well-suited to help out in disaster response and recovery. They are
flexible, they can adapt their missions, they can marshal resources,
and they can get around stultifying paperwork. But even the most
efficient, well-run, well-funded nonprofit group has a limited reach.
For all of the work that the nonprofit sector has done and continues to
do in the hurricane recovery effort, it is still more akin to a drop in
the bucket rather than a giant wave.

The scale of the devastation is so vast in Louisiana and across the
Mississippi Gulf Coast that only government has the capacity to handle
significant rebuilding. The role of the nonprofit sector was not meant
to replace government as the primary driver of the recovery. Rather, it
was to buttress the governmental response, to fill in the gaps. For the
recovery to proceed in a timely and substantial way, government must
take the lead while nonprofit, community-based, and faith-based
organizations play a strong supporting role with their focus on the
human element of any disaster.

This report is part of an ongoing research project being conducted
jointly by the Rockefeller Institute and PAR with the help of a grant
from the Ford Foundation. In addition, the John C. Stennis Institute of
Government at Mississippi State University and the Center for Urban
Planning and Policy Assessment at Jackson State University are
partnering in the research network for this project, as are researchers
affiliated with Louisiana State University, the Southern University Law
Center, and McNeese State University. The Advisory Committee for the
project is chaired by former Mississippi Gov. William F. Winter.

This one's a bit interesting. A new island roughly seven miles long has been formed near Dauphin Island in Alabama waters. The isle has "waist-high dunes" and "thick dune"
vegetation, along with seagrass beds and " several
small salt ponds packed with baitfish". Read about it here.

June 20, 2007

We're angry that the federal government has
fallen down on the job of staying on schedule with maintaining and
upgrading the nation's hurricane warning satellite system.

Okay, now this article at the Pensacola News Journal takes a rather pro-active stance on the Bill Proenza/aging satellite controversy. To wit: " The center of Hurricane Ivan came ashore
near Gulf Shores, Ala. -- just east of Mobile Bay -- around 2 a.m. on
Sept. 16, 2004. Its location whipped the worst of Ivan's winds, rain
and storm surge into the Pensacola Bay Area. It
was just scant hours earlier that word had reached the News Journal
newsroom that the storm had shifted east, toward us. Earlier, at 8 p.m.
on the 15th, forecasters had issued a prediction putting Ivan ashore
west of Mobile Bay". The difference between those two locations made all the difference for the Pensacola area". Good point.

On a more personal note, I remember that day well. I left Destin, Florida as the storm was approaching in order to get back to Baton Rouge before the storm made landfall. What a nightmare. I crawled Interstate 10 as every city along the Gulf Coast was evacuated funneling massive amounts of bumper to bumper traffic into the interstate. At some point New Orleans was evacuated and then all hell broke loose. The interstate went totally gridlocked. From there It took me about 7 hours to make the crawl from Slidell to Baton Rouge, and it's generally a 2 hour drive, tops. The point is evacuations are a slow process. The more advanced notice an area has to evacuate the less chaotic things are going to be. Big Money required for a new QuickStat but the satellite is important.

May 12, 2007

Higher energy costs are being cited as one of the factors in Louisiana's loss of the ThyssenKrupp AG steel mill to Alabama. When I'm not blogging :) I help my husband operate his railroad building and maintenance company which does business with Bayou Steel Corporation in La Place, Louisiana. Several years ago Bayou Steel had to go into Chapter 11 bankruptcy. I represented the creditors on that bankruptcy committee and I remember well that one of the major issues forcing the steel company into bankruptcy were the out of control energy costs. So yes, concerns around energy costs really could have been a significant factor in ThyssenKrupp AG decision. See the Baton Rouge Advocate follow-up article here.

ThyssenKrupp Initially Reported Louisiana Won Bid - This is interesting. Reporter's at Baton Rouge's Channel 9 News say they waited up all through the night for a word from ThyssenKrupp. They say they "got a shot of their web site around 7:00am", central time. "It congratulates Louisiana and Governor Blanco for scoring the new business".

May 11, 2007

German Steel Maker ThyssenKrupp AG announced today it will build a new $4.19 billion steel plant in Alabama, near the city of Mobile. Blogger C.B. Forgotston, Jr. in his post "Coulda Woulda Shoulda" states that Louisiana was never going to get the steel mill. Forgotston's take on things? "The Germans simply knew that we were the most desperate Southern state
and used us/Blanco to bid up the offer from AL. It worked". Ouch!

Check out Forgotston's post here. And for full details on ThyssenKrupp's decision to favor Alabama, The Washington Post reports here.

February 02, 2007

While, the latest hoopla surrounding former LSU coach Nick Saban's ethnic slur is definitely not a disaster recovery issue (well I suppose for Saban and UAL it is), this blog is after all a grass roots media initiative. For that reason I keep my fingers on the pulse of media issues in general. And I am especially tuned into the issue of integrity in journalism (which I feel applies equally to bloggers as well).

So what was troubling to me about the Nick Saban story (in addition to Saban's own faux pas), was the poor judgement displayed by Miami Herald reporter, Jeff Darlington. For those of you who aren't familiar with this now infamous tale of woe, Darlington sent taped "off the record comments" made by Saban to South Florida radio host Orlando
Alzugaray of 560-WQAM [who] aired the comments on his morning show in both
South Florida and Mobile, and the recording soon spread on the Internet". (Tuscaloosa News).

Contributor Doug Ray posting at Tuscaloosanews.com had this to say about the incident. "Reporters should be able to agree that some conversations are off the
record. That said, everyone in the room needs to understand what that
phrase means and how it is being used. Generally, it means that what is
about to be said is not to be attributed to the person who says it.
Going "off the record" has been interpreted by courts as a legally
binding contract. For journalists, it also carries ethical weight".

I couldn't agree more. In fact, several news sources today are reporting that Darlington has issued a public apology. To wit: “In poor judgment, I decided to e-mail another journalist an audio
sampling of an interview that took place in Nick Saban’s office,"
Darlington said. “Though I did not expect the clip to be used, it was
still my responsibility to make sure the audio was never published in
any way. I apologize for my bad decision".

Now I'm not buying it - i..e "I didn't expect the clip to be used".C'mon... If Darlington didn't expect the clip to be used why did he send it to Alzugaray , a radio host, then? To expand on this point, Darlington then trys to wiggle out in the next sentence.`My recorder was on the table in front of Coach Saban, in plain view,
and he knew the conversation was being recorded. However, I never
initially reported the material because he indicated to the three
reporters present that it was not intended for print."

Darlington's apology doesn't wash for me. He doesn't seem to "get it" quite yet. I hope he does come to it at some point.

January 29, 2007

The Times-Picayune reports Governor Blanco and Insurance Commissioner Jim Donelon are in California schmoozing with insurers. The agenda is to "urge a
large group of high-level insurance executives to come to
Louisiana to write policies, and to explain to the computer
modeling companies that make the projections that insurers
use to set rates why their forecasts are too harsh and are
hurting Louisiana". Insurance seems to be the hot topic along the gulf coast these days aka the Scruggs/State Farm class action suit, and the controversy over RMI's method of computer modeling. It will be interesting to see what develops. You can read more at the Times-Pic.

The Department of History at the University of South
Alabama and the Journal of American History are hosting a conference
entitled "Through the Eye of Katrina: The Past as Prologue?" from March
7-10, 2007. This multi-disciplinary conference will examine the history and
culture of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast in the aftermath of one of the
worst natural disasters to hit the United States. Scholars from universities
throughout the United States will discuss the hurricane's impact on the
black community, political structures, New Orleans architecture, artists, Mardi Gras, poverty, and racial justice. The conference will
include a keynote lecture by Professor Lawrence Powell of Tulane
University. Conference papers will be published in a special edition of
the Journal of American History. For more information, please visit our
website at www.southalabama.edu/history/katrina or call USA's
History Department at (251) 460-6210.

Martha Jane
BrazyAssociate ProfessorDepartment of HistoryUniversity of South
Alabama

December 12, 2006

Steve Mufson at WaPo has penned a great article focused on the recent passage of the bill to share offshore oil and gas royalties with the gulf states. And interestingly I learned some things I didn't already know about Louisiana oil and gas history. For example, according to the article, "in 1949, Harry Truman offered Gulf states 37.5 percent of offshore
drilling royalties. Louisiana's governor balked, and the states got
nothing". Now this was before my time, but I am a third generation Louisianian and this did happen during the Earl Long administration which was during my parents and grandparents hey dey. My grandmother, Margaret Atkinson, worked for the Department of Conservation at that time and it was her job to determine how many barrels of oil per day drillers were allowed to drill. I am sure she would have been aware of Long's attempt to strike this deal. But I digress - the article is a good read - catch it here.

Publisher

Margaret Saizan is a digital media producer, visual arts rep & vision strategist. Her mission is to inspire new vision through transformational media and communications.

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Paul A. GreenbergPaul A. Greenberg teaches journalism at Tulane University in New Orleans. He also writes for a number of local, regional and national publications. Greenberg has been chronicling post-Katrina New Orleans since five days after the storm.

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